PH's new clothes
Discussion
This re-design / update reminds me of when they built a new leisure centre in a town I lived in , they needed a bigger place because a couple of new housing developments had been built and the old place despite being perfectly seviceable was overwhelmed .
So the new leisure centre was built, opened and even won a design honour for it's modern outlook and layout . Oh the council was pleased with itself .
The old place had only one door which was always jammed open but the new place now had two entrances with a sensor operated revolving door in beween two doors on each side . They only put in the normal doors each side because deliveries couldn't go through the revolving door .
First week the problems started , little kids eager to get into the building would run ahead of their parents , the door sensor saw someone coming , started going round and you had a 7 year old trpped in the mecanism because they suddenly realised they were separted from the parent and they stopped . One of the doors would hit them and halt everything , if they waited 5 seconds it would restart but they were too young to realise that so they banged off the inside doors and the whole thing stopped . Then someone from reception had to open it all manually . Eventually the doors were re-programmed not to stop so easily but then kids started getting there fingers caught between the door and the wall , that would stop everything and you guessed it someone from reception had to come and let them out . Cue angry parent and traumatised children .
So after a few months the fancy main revolving door was turned off , the very thing that alledgedly won the awawrd for it's innovation and moderism was a liabilty . The other smaller revolving door on the other side of the building had been turned off in the first week as when it was operating and there was a strong wind a gale then blew through the reception area .The revolving doors eventually became storage cupboards .
Once inside the building it all looked very modern and slick but like the revolving doors there was no thought to how it would be used . There was no air conditioning because it was too expensive to run but there weren't enough windows in the glass roof that opened so it was boiling in summer and freezing in winter . The galliered area where you could watch from was upstairs but the lift was always broken so if you were in a wheelchair or had a pushchair you had to go outside to the second entrance and use that . At night you had yobs coming in that second entrance and messing about so eventually that was too closed after 6.00 pm because the people on reception had to chase them out .
The swimming pool had a wave machine and a jet stream built in , it looked great . When they first tried the jet stream thing it blew eveything out the pool , one of the lifeguards got thrown against the side and broke his ribs so it was never used , never . The wave machine was just as bad , someone had miscalculated the size of the waves it produced so when it was turned on there was a tsunami instead of gentle waves . Little kids got thrown out the water and even strong swimmers stopped swimming and waited until it was turned off , that was on the lowest setting apparently . They needed four lifeguards instead of one or two each time it was turned on to sort out the chaos , thankfully there was a hooter which warned the machine was going to be turned on and you could get out or cling onto the side rail until it stopped . The water temperature was set for swimming not playing so the people on the swimming club twice a week were happy , they didn't overheat but everyone else was cold . Couldn't turn it either as then there was too much condensation because of the windows problem so you either swam or froze .
Then after a year or two the roof started leaking , you had water dripping on the main halls so stuff like badminton had to stop , they tried repairing it but because lots of money has been spent on the revolving doors and the super duper pool machinery the budget for the roof had been reduced , the roof was cheap rubbish .
The solution was to cancel bookings when it rained and/or put out buckets to catch the water but that didn't solve the problem of water entering in the first place , eventually it got so bad that the electrics got soaked and set off alarms and stopped things like fridges working .
There was an automatic link to the fire station which would go off when that got wet so everyone would get turfed outside in the rain when a false alarm happened , one of the freezers shortcircuited and started a real fire which took out the bar area . The novelty of the fireman Sam turning up on a false alarm soon wore off for all concerned .
The experience of the new leisure centre became a joke.
The old building got sold off and was turned into flats ,so the good people of the town voted with their feet and went to the next town to use their centre instead .
The new leisure centre had a smaller income , jobs were lost and it's became a money pit .
The designers were happy though , they got an award .
So the new leisure centre was built, opened and even won a design honour for it's modern outlook and layout . Oh the council was pleased with itself .
The old place had only one door which was always jammed open but the new place now had two entrances with a sensor operated revolving door in beween two doors on each side . They only put in the normal doors each side because deliveries couldn't go through the revolving door .
First week the problems started , little kids eager to get into the building would run ahead of their parents , the door sensor saw someone coming , started going round and you had a 7 year old trpped in the mecanism because they suddenly realised they were separted from the parent and they stopped . One of the doors would hit them and halt everything , if they waited 5 seconds it would restart but they were too young to realise that so they banged off the inside doors and the whole thing stopped . Then someone from reception had to open it all manually . Eventually the doors were re-programmed not to stop so easily but then kids started getting there fingers caught between the door and the wall , that would stop everything and you guessed it someone from reception had to come and let them out . Cue angry parent and traumatised children .
So after a few months the fancy main revolving door was turned off , the very thing that alledgedly won the awawrd for it's innovation and moderism was a liabilty . The other smaller revolving door on the other side of the building had been turned off in the first week as when it was operating and there was a strong wind a gale then blew through the reception area .The revolving doors eventually became storage cupboards .
Once inside the building it all looked very modern and slick but like the revolving doors there was no thought to how it would be used . There was no air conditioning because it was too expensive to run but there weren't enough windows in the glass roof that opened so it was boiling in summer and freezing in winter . The galliered area where you could watch from was upstairs but the lift was always broken so if you were in a wheelchair or had a pushchair you had to go outside to the second entrance and use that . At night you had yobs coming in that second entrance and messing about so eventually that was too closed after 6.00 pm because the people on reception had to chase them out .
The swimming pool had a wave machine and a jet stream built in , it looked great . When they first tried the jet stream thing it blew eveything out the pool , one of the lifeguards got thrown against the side and broke his ribs so it was never used , never . The wave machine was just as bad , someone had miscalculated the size of the waves it produced so when it was turned on there was a tsunami instead of gentle waves . Little kids got thrown out the water and even strong swimmers stopped swimming and waited until it was turned off , that was on the lowest setting apparently . They needed four lifeguards instead of one or two each time it was turned on to sort out the chaos , thankfully there was a hooter which warned the machine was going to be turned on and you could get out or cling onto the side rail until it stopped . The water temperature was set for swimming not playing so the people on the swimming club twice a week were happy , they didn't overheat but everyone else was cold . Couldn't turn it either as then there was too much condensation because of the windows problem so you either swam or froze .
Then after a year or two the roof started leaking , you had water dripping on the main halls so stuff like badminton had to stop , they tried repairing it but because lots of money has been spent on the revolving doors and the super duper pool machinery the budget for the roof had been reduced , the roof was cheap rubbish .
The solution was to cancel bookings when it rained and/or put out buckets to catch the water but that didn't solve the problem of water entering in the first place , eventually it got so bad that the electrics got soaked and set off alarms and stopped things like fridges working .
There was an automatic link to the fire station which would go off when that got wet so everyone would get turfed outside in the rain when a false alarm happened , one of the freezers shortcircuited and started a real fire which took out the bar area . The novelty of the fireman Sam turning up on a false alarm soon wore off for all concerned .
The experience of the new leisure centre became a joke.
The old building got sold off and was turned into flats ,so the good people of the town voted with their feet and went to the next town to use their centre instead .
The new leisure centre had a smaller income , jobs were lost and it's became a money pit .
The designers were happy though , they got an award .
Edited by Catgirl on Monday 19th December 15:19
Forums | Website Feedback | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff